an Encyclopaedia of Jewish Women

There have always been American Jewish women who have sought to counter recurring amnesia about the contributions of Jewish women to their religion and society. Rosa Sonneschein's huge effort on this score was the monthly publication The American Jewess which appeared from 1895-1899. The Jewish Women's Archive has worked to ensure that Sonneschein's work is not forgotten by making the full run of that journal available and searchable on-line. The Jewish Women's Archive, itself, of course is only one the latest of public efforts to insist that Jewish women's history not be forgotten. As Sonneschein observed "not what has happened, but what is recorded makes history."

Cincinnati's Every Friday newspaper of May 6, 1932 offers a glimpse of some other women seeking to fight the male-biased trend of history writing by gathering the stories of Jewish women's achievements into bound volumes. The newspaper noted that "Plans for the first comprehensive publication of facts relating to the work of American Jewish womanhood" had been announced by "Jewish Women of America, an organization with headquarters at 103 Park Avenue, New York." The effort was "to take the form of an Encyclopaedia of Jewish Women, with Rebekah Kohut and Estelle M. Sternberg as Editors."

Sternberger, the article notes had resigned as Executive Secretary of the National Council of Jewish women to take up this work. I don't recall hearing of Sternberger before. I do however know something about Rebekah Kohut, and it is in this light that I can feel some satisfaction at learning of this encyclopedia that never, as far as I know, saw the light of day. Kohut, a leading figure in the effort to create new public roles for Jewish women in the late ninteenth and early twentieth centuries, led a rich and estimable life. In fact, I got to write the article about her that appeared in the marvelous encyclopedia that did eventually get written about American Jewish women.

In 1997, 65 years after Kohut and Sternberger set out to capture the collective experience of "Jewish Women of America," Paula E. Hyman and Deborah Dash Moore published American Jewish Women: An Historical Encylopedia. That work (and its sequel Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia, edited by Hyman and Dalia Ofer, now available on CD) has proven to be an incomparable guide to the richness and scope of the story that Kohut and Sternberg wanted to tell in 1932. I'm going to see if I can find Estelle M. Sternberg in it tomorrow morning.